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Battle of Elric
The Battle of Elric was an armed engagement between the Royal Manticoran Navy and the People's Navy in the First Havenite-Manticoran War, during Operation Scylla. Order of battle Royal Manticoran Navy Elric System Defense Command, CO Vice Admiral Frederick Malone: * wall of battle: ** Battle Division 62, GSN, CO Rear Admiral Aristides Trikoupis ** a battle division (SD), RMN * a battlecruiser elementIncluding HMS Amphitrite and HMS Lysander. * a heavy cruiser element * a light cruiser squadron * a destroyer element People's Navy Task Force 12.3 of Twelfth Fleet, CO Vice Admiral John Groenewold: * wall of battle * a battlecruiser element * a cruiser element Course of battle From the start of the battle, Task Force 12.3 approached the inner system cautiously in a much tighter formation than previously observed by the Manticoran Alliance, changing both course and vector repeatedly to extend the amount of time necessary for a successful intercept. The Havenite ships moved much more closely together than had been observed before. The shortened distance between their impeller wedges reducing their maneuverability in case they had to roll to interpose their wedges between themselves and incoming missiles, but close enough to overlap their point defense envelopes. Unbeknownst to the Manticorans until Admiral Malone's second-in-command, Rear Admiral Aristides Trikoupis, noticed it, the Havenites' odd formation was a preliminary attempt to formulate an anti-LAC doctrine. At that point, Admiral Trikoupis passed the order to his tactical officer, Commander Adam Towson, to commence rolling pods from the three Alliance SD(P)s in command. Towson immediately ordered his assistants to execute Plan Baker Three. The SD(P)s started to roll pods, passing them to their consorts, while one of them, [[HMS Belisarius|HMS Belisarius]], launched a quartet of EW drones to simulate an additional four superdreadnoughts. The Havenites attempted to intercept the Alliance picket, but Admiral Malone changed course to keep the range between them open. Once the Alliance picket reached its firing point, Trikoupis ordered Townson to engage and the picket flushed their pods. Forty-nine hundred missiles were directed at Task Force 12.3 and Admiral Groenewold ordered his ships to launch their own pods before they could be destroyed with proximity kills, sending thirteen thousand missiles back at the Alliance picket. Unfortunately for the Havenites, the missiles in the Alliance salvo were the product of Project Ghost Rider. Every fifth missile in the incoming salvo was either a jammer or an electronic warfare missile. Because of those jammers and EW missiles, Task Force 12.3's point defense was less than half as effective as it should have been. Barely twenty percent were intercepted by counter missiles with another eighteen percent being intercepted by laser clusters. Despite the Havenite point defense, twenty-four hundred missiles reached attack range and detonated almost as one. All of the Alliance missiles were directed against only five ships and those five ships where all destroyed, killing twenty-five thousand Havenites, including Vice Admiral Groenewold. The Havenite salvo arrived at that point with ten thousand of the thirteen thousand being blinded or misdirected by the jammers and decoys. Three thousand of the missiles expended themselves on the EW drones masquerading as superdreadnoughts while another three thousand expended themselves on geninue targets, but spread themselves across the entire picket. Every ship in the picket rolled to present the bellies of their wedges to the Havenite missiles while their active defenses engaged. HMS Belisarius escaped the missile attack without damage, but the battlecruisers ''Amphitrite'' and ''Lysander'' took damage. Amphitrite continued to escape, but Lysander lost its after impeller ring. Lysander's crew abandoned and was rescued by their squadronmates before the Alliance picket departed the system. ( ) Aftermath The battle served as an effective field test of the Manticoran Alliance's new Ghost Rider systems in an environment that allowed the Alliance commanders to conceal their existence. ( ) References Elric, Battle of Elric, Battle of